WORLD CONGRESS
Transforming with Water is the theme of the 2008 World Congress of the International Federation of Landscape Architects. This 45th IFLA World Congress will be held in the Netherlands from June 30 to July 3, in conjunction with the Apeldoorn Landscape Architecture Triennale, which hosts various other cutting-edge landscape events, such as the European Summer School, A Wider View on Cultural Landscape Challenges in Europe, the Conference Landscape and Leisure, and various exhibitions on garden history and landscape architecture.

THE CHALLENGE
Without water there is no mankind, no landscape that evolves. For ages man has lived together with water that has supported the landscapes of civilisation. It is with water that the outward appearance, the face of the earth has come about, grows and ever evolves.
Recently, changing weather conditions pose an urgent and demanding task to humankind all over the world. The great Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, melting glaciers, and the extreme drought in many parts of the world show the dramatic forces of water, whether we get too much or too little. Agricultural systems will have to be adapted, our leisure behaviour will change with popular holiday destinations becoming too wet, too hot and dry, or lacking needed snow. Other areas perhaps will prosper from an improving climate. Urban structures will have to be rethought in order to cope with extreme peaks in precipitation, or to use scarce fresh water through smart retention planning for surface and subsoil water.
Water is transforming the landscape and it will continue to do so. We landscape architects can try to better understand the transforming power of water; to design our landscapes on the common theme of transforming forces of water; in the end also to transform ourselves, to transform our education, practice, and profession. Then it is water that transforms and presents an epoch-making chance to advance landscape architecture.

THREE DAYS CONGRESS
Landscape architects and professionals from all over the world are invited to join the 2008 IFLA Congress and share knowledge and ideas on the challenges and possibilities that we face when it comes to Transforming with Water.
The three days of the congress cover the theme in full breadth and depth. Each day has its own central theme to focus the activities of the day. The program offers a mix of keynote speeches, presentations, debates, excursions, workshops, executive lectures, an interactive forum, and social events. All participants can pick their choice to gain maximum benefit from the rich variety of the contents offered. But everybody shares time together at the beginning and the end of the day, to provide every opportunity for meeting and exchanging ideas.
The primary focus of the congress is to facilitate a full discussion on the possibilities to design with water, whether not enough or on the contrary too much. Through the juxtaposition of water as either friend or foe the debate is stretched to facilitate the discovery of new ways to live together with water’s transforming power.
With excursions and on-site lectures you can visit the Dutch landscape, see the struggle of trial and error, and the - at times - successful dialogue with nature that was achieved. The indoor lecture sessions are reserved to hear about experiences from other parts of the world and reflect in a global perspective on wisdom, experience, and universally sound knowledge when it comes to Transforming with Water.

EXCURSIONS: ON-SITE EXPERIENCE
In western parts of the Netherlands, the low countries historically called Holland, an effort towards land planning has existed since the Middle Ages in order to make the marshland somehow habitable. To save the country from the threat of water flooding, the need to cooperate generated an intricate political process of decision making on matters of land and water. In fact, transforming the landscape was a necessity that could only be done as a communal process. By now it has become an almost inevitable part of Dutch culture. Usually it is too much water that has kept the Dutch busy, but in eastern and southern regions of the Netherlands, strategies to retain or catch the water have been developed as well. Catching and retaining as much water as possible is an evident goal on the higher diluvial soils in these regions.
Since the earliest days of professional practice, landscape architects have also been involved with the transforming of the landscape, usually within larger consultative bodies, including architects, engineers, politicians, and the communities. Landscape architects in the Netherlands not rarely offer an interdisciplinary contribution by accelerating or refreshing the planning process through challenging design, rather than bringing a final, architectural solution.
On the excursions you may see and experience the continued transforming of the soft, resilient soil of the country into a man-made landscape through water control, wetland management, and land reclamation. In coastal regions, dams and dikes to defend agriculture and human settlement from the tides of the sea gave a harder solution to the problem. A need for architecture was felt from the earliest time on, such as reflected in the design of roads and waterways in the seventeenth century reclamations north of Amsterdam, inspired by Vitruvius? tradition; part of which is now designated as an Unesco World Heritage Site. Also the post-war sea defense works have a strong architectural quality. But too constrained functionalism negates nature, and has proved to be inadequate and too simple, certainly in the face of the increasing complexity and dynamics of the landscape processes today.

CONGRESS PROGRAM - day one
June 30, Congress Day One
Living with Water
No life without water. A definite truth that keeps landscape architects at work all over the world. We design systems to irrigate in places where water is scarce or we invent landscapes to drain and control a surplus of water. Agriculture, leisure, cityscape: the water system comes to support a complex system of living, working, and loving, a system that we call the human settlement, although it may even include nature conservation aims.

About this day’s program:
After a keynote speech by State Landscape Architect Dirk Sijmons of the Netherlands, the morning is devoted to two separate lecture sessions: Living with Scarce Water or Living with Excess Water.
In the afternoon you can visit the landscapes of reclamation in the west and middle of Holland where the Dutch have been working for generations in an effort to control excess water. Those who do not join an afternoon excursion can attend one of the several workshops on Living with Water.

Excursion Sea Bed is a visit to 20th century landscapes reclaimed from the Zuiderzee sea bed.

Excursion Lakes and Marshes is a visit to an older and more complex, vernacular landscape reclaimed from lakes, marshes and wetlands, north of Amsterdam.

CONGRESS PROGRAM - day two
July 1, Congress Day Two
Land Meets Water
The world’s oceans surround around our continents. Coasts are everywhere. There are serene beaches of limpid water and white sands, or dynamic places of wind and dramatic erosion. Sheltered inlets have harbours, deltas are heavily populated landscapes, coasts attract tourism - people always want to profit from being near the sea. Inland lakes are valuable resources of nature often with precious fish. Lakes can be man-made to provide fresh water supply. Shores attract development.
Coasts and shores capture the imagination, but these can also be places of worry and concern. Globally the claim of humans on coasts and shores is increasing. Sea levels rise and lakes are shrinking. The dividing line between land and water is dynamic and dramatically changing: sometimes because of the land or the sea; sometimes just because of unpredictable disaster. Shores and coasts are more and more a place of focus for landscape architects, waterfront development is globally a challenge. How to deal with lakes and coastal regions in a way that sustains the landscape, increasing our safety and quality of life?

About this day?s program:
The morning indoor session has a keynote speech on the topic followed by two separate lecture sessions: Coastal regions or Lakes and shores. In the afternoon you can either join the Excursion Harbour, or attend one of the workshops on Land Meets Water. You may also choose the full-day Excursion Delta

Excursion Delta is a visit to the post-war coastal landscapes of the delta of the Rhine and Scheldt rivers. An in-depth lecture will be given on site at lunch time. We visit the bold, outer coastal works and inner lakes, where civil engineers and landscape architects have worked on challenging projects.

Excursion Harbour is a visit to the harbour landscape of Rotterdam.

CONGRESS PROGRAM - day three
July 2, Congress Day Three
Flow of Water
The source of our water is snow and rain. It collects in streams, rivers, and aquifers that bring needed water, sometimes too much for us to use, or not enough at all.
As landscape architects we see rivers as the life line in a landscape, structuring our settlement and trade. Rivers can be dammed or canalized. The power of the water can be controlled and buffered adapting to our water needs. But water systems can also run dry.
Running water captures the imagination, and therefore also tourists. Sadly, the cycle of rain and running water is losing balance. Uncontrolled developments have a serious impact on the landscape system of the river or the aquifer. Snow and rain are becoming unpredictable. Landscape architecture offers valuable contributions in living with precious aquifers, rivers, and streams.

About this day’s program:
After a keynote speech the morning is devoted to two separate lecture sessions: River Beds to Fill or River Floodings to Control. In the afternoon you may join one of the excursions to the riverscapes in mid Holland, or join one of the workshops on Flow of Water.

Excursion River in Balance is a visit to the Nijmegen-Arnhem area and involves visits to retention landscapes along the Rhine and revival efforts for run-off streams of the Veluwe hills.

Excursion Controlling the Floods is a visit to the lower Rhine branch Waal to see how reinforcement works to control high river floods fit in with the older landscape.

Forum: fair and debate
The Forum is an open fair with presentations by exhibitors and participants, basically open all day, every day. But the Forum becomes really hot every morning of the three Congress days, when participants and exhibitors put forward their case in the casual atmosphere of the Hot Item Forum held from 10:00 to 10:45 am. To facilitate a relaxed exchange of views the participants? coffee break runs parallel. You either listen, look and give your open comment or you propose an item. It gives you a chance to share and develop your thoughts with hundreds of attendants of the IFLA Congress 2008. In a free and interactive communication, you can explain your Hot Item and expect comments or advise from any visitor of the Forum.
Our Aim: The Hot Item Forum is not a commercial fair to present some novel product you want to sell. On the contrary: the Hot Item Forum invites institutions and individuals with a local, regional, national or international landscape issue to challenge the public and invite an interactive exchange of ideas. Hot Items are presented with a bright presentation on a poster or the screen, a booth exhibition, perhaps helped by a short speaker-corner’s speech or table demonstration. We hope that the contents can be improved in the course of the three days, reflecting your growing insight and elevating the common cause. Remarkable Items may become the topic of a more general Congress presentation on the last day. This is your chance to introduce your ideas, meet, and discuss with the world?s top-level consultants. See also the Call for Contributions for more details and on how to apply.

Call for contributions
Deadline for all submissions: December 1, 2007
Please contact us with your proposal for a contribution for one or more of the following:
For a Lecture with paper
For a Workshop with programme
For a Hot Item with proposition

The Congress profits from a wide variety of diverse interpretations of the themes. Whether artistic, academic, architectural, theoretical, esthetic, cultural, educational, philosophic, or otherwise, we welcome your proposal!

How to submit: Lectures and papers.
Speakers address the public with a 20 minute lecture on something related to the theme of the day: Living with Water, Land Meets Water, or Flow of Water. We expect a presentation with clear illustrations, either as slides or in PowerPoint. Be prepared for questions and debate, for which about 10 minutes will be strictly adhered to.
Send in a digital proposal that contains an abstract of 500-1000 words in English with title, main theme, and proposed discussion, adding four illustrations. Illustrations might be photos, graphics, or anything that illustrates your proposed lecture. Please, indicate the day theme with which your contribution deals.
We plan to publish in the proceedings any proposal that passes the referee selection process. So please indicate clearly if you are only submitting a paper and do not intend to speak. Selected speakers and some other contributors will be invited to deliver a final digital paper of 2000-2500 words with illustrations for publication in the proceedings.
We might ask you to prepare a text for a proper book publication later, if funds allow.

How to submit: Workshops with a programme.
You will work with a group of applicants to your workshop for two hours on a theme related to the theme of the day: Living with Water, Land Meets Water, or Flow of Water. We expect a project outline with a clear title and an approach that challenges participants to work together producing an added, new awareness of the issue proposed as the result of collective group creativity. Send in a digital proposal of about 500 words in English with four illustrations that gives the title, the programme, and ways in which you want to organize your workshop. Give an idea of the maximum amount of participants you can take. Also indicate the day theme with which your contribution deals. We might ask you to present a summary to other participants in the course of the Congress.

How to submit: Hot Item Forum
All presentations in the Forum have some relation with the theme Transforming with Water. Send in a digital proposal of not more that 200 words, with illustrations, in English that explains your Hot Item. What is the issue, the question, the project, the solution, or the problem that you want to pose? How do you physically want to show your Hot Item?
Please indicate your participation status: if you are an individual, or a group of individuals, participation is free. For universities, institutes, institutions, and companies (and individuals representing one of these) we have attractive Participation Packages, including a Communication Strategy.
We allow for a booth of about 9 meters square, or a width of two meters along the wall, or a horizontal space (table) of about 2×1 meter. Actual presentation space may differ because of our Floorplan ? to which you have to comply. In the course of our planning preparations we will ask you for more specifications.
You can invite participants to view your presentation but we will not allow for noisy, or troublesome advertising.

An anonymous peer review committee of independent referees, and our Advisory Committee are consulted for the selection of all contributions.

Time/Action Schedule

December 1, 2007: Submission deadline for proposals for Lectures with papers, Workshops with programmes, or Hot items
January 2008: Review of proposals & selection of contributions
January 25, 2008: Announcement of accepted contributions & invitation for full papers and Hot Item details
February 29, 2008: Deadline for full papers submission and Hot Item details
March 2008: Review of full papers, Forum Floorplan fixed
April 15, 2008: announcement of fixed/detailed program
May 2008: Final Preparations, proceeding printing (digital and book formats)
June 2008: Deadline for Registration & Hotel booking
June/July 2008: Conference (June 30, July 1 and 2)

Students: International Competition and charrettes
The International Students’ Competition “Transforming with Water - The Way to Paradise” and the charrettes are announced on the web site: www.IFLA2008.com

Executive Lectures, Post Congress Tours, Social Events, Entertainment
see announcements on: www.IFLA2008.com

European Summer School, A Wider View on Cultural Landscape Challenges in Europe; Conference Landscape and Leisure
see announcements on: www.IFLA2008.com

Triennale Apeldoorn
see announcements on: http://www.triennale.nl/en/index.html

Exhibitions
see announcements on: www.IFLA2008.com